It is not just on the criteria for identifying endocrine disruptors that the Commission is behind on its schedule – a schedule that is vital for ensuring the protection of public health and the environment, the Environment Council stated in Brussels on Monday 19 December.
In conclusions that it adopted on “Protection of human health and the environment through sound management of chemicals”, the Council lists the initiatives that were to have been presented by the Commission in 2015 and that are still awaited.
These are: - a strategic approach to pollution of water by pharmaceutical substances, announced initially for September 2015; - the report on the assessment of chemical mixtures; - the review of the regulation on cosmetic products with regard to substances with endocrine-disrupting properties that was due before January 2015; - review of the procedure for authorisation of substances with endocrine disrupting properties within the framework of the REACH regulation on the registration, evaluation and limited authorisation of chemicals.
Precautionary principle is a must. The conclusions underline the importance of these measures as it is on them that the strategy for a non-toxic environment will be built – a strategy that the Commission is due to present in 2018 in line with the seventh Environmental Action Programme (seventh EAP, covering the period from 2013 to 2020) which presents a long-term vision for a non-toxic environment (see EUROPE 11650). The seventh EAP, and its implementation, must be based on the precautionary principle, the principles of preventive action and of rectification of pollution at source and the polluter-pays principle, the Council states.
The Council points out, too, that, by September 2017, the Commission is expected to propose measures, where appropriate, to address the possible environmental effects of endocrine disrupting substances.
These conclusions were adopted two days before the committees of member state experts are due to meet to allow the Commission gauge the member states’ views on the criteria for identifying endocrine disruptors which it presented three years late and marginally amended (see EUROPE 11685).
The Commission seeks to reassure. When questioned by the press about the reasons for the delays, European Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella sought to provide reassurance. “This is a complex issue. We don’t want to sacrifice ambition for the sake of haste. We are taking this matter very seriously. It will be discussed by the Commission and the member states on 21 December”, he said. In view of the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the member states, “it’s not at all certain that there will be a vote”, a high-ranking official told EUROPE. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)